Sabah

Following a rapid boom in tobacco planting in the 1880’s what followed was a gradual economic decline in this product following a price depression in the 1890’s. The introduction of Hevea brasiliensis in 1905, stimulated by attractive government incentives, shifted the economy to rubber.

[explain the pivot then to timber]

Enter the British Borneo Timber Company, given a monopoly in 1920 which was terminated in 1952, and ‘a new agreement was entered into with the North Borneo Timber Company which enables this company to operate over a limited area for a period of twenty-one years, with conditions imposing modern large-scale methods of afforestation and silvicultural control providing for a true regeneration cycle of about eighty years.’

Even with Palm Oil, agriculture in the state is driven by political and economic wrangling.

Heart of Borneo (WWF campaign to link forest fragments)

Forever Sabah (a push to transition to a low carbon green economy)

On January 15, 2002, Sabah’s Chief Minister launched “Kinabatangan – A Corridor of Life”.

Sabah is one of the first (? Dutch East India Company, VOC?) provinces to be developed under the structure of a Limited Liability Company, rather than a province, government, or political structure. The North Borneo Chartered Company

[Describe how logging was done during the North Borneo Chartered Company time, and how it has caused the ecological disruptions we see today]

We have an opportunity to mitigate ‘the negative impacts of climate change on biodiversity, through appropriate land management’ [Oliver, Morecroft, 2014].